To Connect
by Sagittaria
Summary: Post-Mockingjay, pre-Epilogue; Peeta and Katniss must accept that their lives have irreversibly changed in order to move forward.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_I've gone crazy, couldn't you tell.  
I threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell._

-Gregory Alan Isakov, The Stable Song

The meadow had stood around me, silent, unchanging, illusory, until I forgot that the world outside the meadow had shattered. The same stalks of long grasses, permanent borders of thick pines, and spattering of wildflowers uninterrupted by the passage of time. They were the the greens of my youth, of Prim being at home with Buttercup and my mother, with Gale in the woods, against the boulder, sunshine on our cheekbones. I stood there and closed my eyes, breathing in the perfume of the meadow. It was the smell of sun-baked straw with the undercurrent of verdant moss and windswept pollen.

_"We could do it, you know." _

_ "What?"_

_ "Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it."_

Gale. His name felt heavy, cold, and metallic in my mouth. Gale, hanging from the collapsing frame of the Capitol, looking at me, pleading. _Shoot me. Shoot me. _

Gale killed Prim.

"Gale killed Prim" I whispered, my knees folding. I knelt on the ground, the tears streaming unabashedly down my face, my body heaving as I whispered and as the whisper grew to a scream. "Gale killed Prim, Gale, Gale, Gale killed Prim. Gale _killed_ Prim. Prim is _dead_. And Gale, Gale, Gale did it. Gale killed Prim. He killed her," I repeated, my chest rising and falling and my ribs giving and taking like they were humans: selfish and hungry for the taste of air.

I let out a wail. It rippled through the trees, shaking violently all the boughs that Gale and I had shot squirrels from. Squirrels that had been baked and broiled, dressed and served to Peeta on his childhood table. It ripped through the leaves, tore the cell walls until the syrupy water of their insides, the serum that Rue had rubbed along my burns, leaked on the forest floor. I howled in the middle of the Meadow until my lungs felt permanently interlocked with my ribs.

I melted to the ground, clutching my chest and gasping.

There was the loud cracking of young leaves and fronds from the forest behind me. It was lost in the rollicking waves of noise that poured endlessly from my insides. All I noticed was the two tanned arms that snaked their way around my waist. "Katniss, Katniss, shh, it's all okay," Peeta whispered. "I'm here now, I'm here, nothing can hurt you anymore."

I collapsed into his arms, my body softening like putty in his hands. He pushed my hair back, cupped my face in his hands, and pushed the tears from my cheekbones with a gentle flick of his thumb. "Peeta," I hiccupped, "why does it feel like every step forward is followed by a stumble back?"

He leaned his arms back, resting his palms on the warm ground. I fell into the space between his legs and leaned my torso into his as if we were two parallel lines, bent out of shape by a hammer dropped from careful hands.

We had lived together in District 12 for almost a year now, coaching each other through the mental breaks that fanned from the civil war we had endured and the changed shape of our lives. I had held Peeta's wrists to the wall as he screamed in my face, hurling insults placed on his tongue by the rose-scented dictator that had tortured both of us. He had sat at end of my bed, running his hands over my calf as I stared blankly at the wall for days at a time. He said nothing, just rubbed the atrophied length of my leg, staring at the oily sheets of hair that covered my face.

There were nights where it felt that we might achieve a new normal. We laughed over plates of dandelion greens and rabbit meat, our mouths glistening with the oils of the food. The laughter was tinny and hollow, but as time wore on it gained weight and body in our throats. We remembered what it was like to feel almost complete and the searing pain that lived in dark, singed coils in the backs of our brains dulled.

But the screams that we both had heard and dealt out still rang in my ears. Nights when I would wake up, sweating and alone in my bed to hear Peeta's screams coming from the room down the hall. We had given up on living separately, his house sitting empty with shattered furniture and torn wallpaper after a night when he remembered details of his torture, my torture, our mutual torture at the hands of the government. I walked in, braless and hair rumpled, to find him curled up in the corner, shaking and panting. "Peeta, what happened?"

"Katniss," he croaked. I sat next to him and stroked his hair. His body was cold and sweat-drenched, his eyes were bloodshot. "Katniss, I can't sleep. My dreams... nightmares..." he managed.

"I know," I said. I did know. My own dreams had been spoiled by the image of Prim's braided hair, of Gale, Snow, Coin, of Prim getting further and further from me as I screamed to her. "I can't sleep either," I said.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I slid slowly to the floor alongside him. Our bodies were coated in a slip of perspiration and we slept, as chaste as children, for the first time in months on that hardwood floor.

Those were steps forward, Peeta moving into my house, us rebuilding the gaps between the Capitol and each other. Now, I had jumped backwards, stumbling into the meadow, tripping over Gale's boulder.

"It's okay if we fall back sometimes," Peeta said, running his hands through my hair. "Maybe we can fall so far back that we undo everything has been done to us."

I thought back to before the 74th Hunger Games, before Haymitch, before Effie, before the letters inside the glass ball had been strung together to form _Primrose Everdeen_. "That can't happen," I said.

I saw his eyes cloud over. I couldn't see the images of the 74th Games that scrolled through the projections of his mind. Images of the two of us, kissing in the riverbanks, sleeping curled together like seahorses.

Peeta slid his legs back and stood up. I turned around, feeling small and unprotected. "Peeta?" I called quietly.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm going to head home," he said.

"Wait, Peeta, I'll follow you back."

The two of us walked back to the Victor's Village, him twenty paces ahead and I silently behind. The meadow may not have changed, but for me the changes had become reality, and as I watched Peeta's wordless back disappearing over the ridge I understood that these changes couldn't be reversed as easily as my footprints in the wildflowers.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_Have you forgotten, how to love yourself?_  
_-Red House Painters, Have You Forgotten_

Peeta stood in the kitchen, slicing the length of a tuber I'd dug from the Meadow that morning. His back enlarged as he inhaled. "Peeta," I murmured.

The discs of potato lay in a clean row on the counter. The knife paused. "Peeta, did I say something wrong?" I pleaded.

He turned to face me, his blue eyes misty and his blond hair matted and dirty. His lips are parted, but the words refuse to come out. We stand in checkmate, watching an ongoing film of our relationship scroll between us. I understand then what I said wrong.

How capricious had I been! How could I have not known what Peeta was referring to when he asked me to undo everything that had been done. I thought of the night that I had been at his house for dinner, about seven months ago, when he had put his fork down to look up at me with eyes all black and dripping lustily for my flesh.

"_You swine_," he panted.

"Peeta, Peeta, stop. This isn't real. This isn't real. What's real is that you and I are friends, we help each other, Peeta, that's what real."

He grunted a laugh. "You can't fool me. You are my enemy, you are the Capitol's enemy. You filthy pig, you... _lecherous_ _slut_."

He stood up, towering above me. He was holding his knife from dinner. "Peeta," I stammered. "Peeta, we are _friends_. Peeta, believe me. The Capitol has brainwashed you, this isn't real, what you remember _isn't real!_"

Peeta laughed, but it sounded more like marbles being poured into a tin can. Synthetic, manufactured, capital.

"Peeta," I stammered as he wraps his hands around my neck. I felt the pressure of his fingertips against the firm tissues of my throat. "Don't do this."

He applied force. "Peeta... _I love you._"

His pupils returned to normal, his veins unwound, and Peeta dropped me to the floor. "Katniss, I'm so sorry I've hurt you."

I smiled softly. "It's alright, Peeta. You could never really hurt me."

And now he faced me with his hurt blue eyes and I understand how I have misspoken.

Peeta registered my expression of understanding. "Katniss, you know what you said."

"I do," I whispered, soft a child awaiting punishment. He ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't know what to do with you, Katniss. I mean, you and I, we are all each other has left. Unless you want to seek solace in Haymitch or something, then be my guest, but I don't understand how you think you can just act like we don't have a history because we do. We fucking do." I recoiled when he curses. He rarely swore, and when he did it was only because he meant it to hit close to home, to strike a cord. "And you can't just walk around me being... being yourself and act like I don't feel a thing anymore. Or that you don't feel a thing anymore, because I know you do feel something, Katniss, you have to."

I stood frozen in the hardened air around me. He looked at me expectantly. _You don't feel a thing anymore, you don't feel a thing anymore, you don't feel a thing anymore_. "Peeta," I said slowly. "I'm just not who I was then. I don't know what I feel anymore. I don't know if I'm capable to opening myself up to feeling anymore because all it's ever gotten me was hurt. And I know that I sound melodramatic, but after everything we've been through, I don't know if I'm up to loving anyone right now."

"But the Capitol, President Snow can't hurt us anymore. This time you _can_ feel because you can't get hurt anymore. There's no one left to hurt you and I'm not leaving this time, Katniss. I'm not going anywhere." He takes a large step towards me, wrapping his hands around my clasped fist. I bit my knuckle softly and let my hands slide out from his.

"I just can't make myself vulnerable right now, not to you."

"Not to me?" Peeta said. His voice sounded raw and wounded. "Katniss, you know I would never intentionally hurt you...," he began.

"Peeta, I know that. But you know me as a strong, proud, soldier. The mockingjay, the revolutionary. And knowing that you want that version of me back, that might be what it takes to resurrect that spirit within me because I know that it still lives there, somewhere soft between the bones of my spine. And I want to be that girl, the girl you loved and the girl who loved you."

Peeta laughed. "Katniss, you're an idiot if you think that I only loved the girl from the Hunger Games. I loved you then, certainly, but I loved you when I threw you those loaves of bread through the rain. You don't need to build yourself up to anything, you just need to let me be a part of who you are right now."

Outsmarted again. Peeta certainly knew how to weave his way around my neurosis. "Peeta, I want to let you in. I'm just beginning to learn how."

"Fine then. I'll wait. I'll wait here for you to figure it out. But you'll have to figure it out eventually, Katniss," Peeta said, with resolve sparkling in his eyes like mica. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

_**Sorry this is short. Working hard to establish a storyline. Please R&R. **_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_But something about just being with you_  
_Slapped me right in the face, nearly broke me in two_  
_It's a mark I've taken to heart_  
_And I know I will carry it with me for a long, long time_  
_-Liz Phair, Shatter_

Peeta's broad back flexed beneath the fabric of his shirt. He stood facing away from me at the stove, gently pushing eggs around our burnished skillet. _Our skillet_. I admonished myself for thinking of us as a singular entity. "Oh good," he said, eyes not leaving the pan. "You're up."

I slapped my palms together, but the noise sounded canned. "Yes, siree!" I chirped, oozing cheer as best I could.

I felt sorry for the things I had said to Peeta the night before, when I essentially told him that I had no idea how to reciprocate any feelings he had for me. I felt bad because what I said was true, yes, but a tiny part of me somewhere in my gut worried that I did love Peeta, but I didn't want to love him. I felt like I was an anvil that weighed on his battered shoulders and that he shouldn't have to carry me with him everywhere he went.

"Well good," he said, sliding a portion of eggs onto a plate for me. "Because I have a special treat for you."

He handed me my plate and a mug of dark, earthy fluid. "Coffee," I said with a smile. I had become hooked on coffee when I was in therapy because the caffeine in the beverage supposedly alleviated headaches. I wrapped my fingers around the warm mug. "Thank you, Peeta."

He sat down in his chair, his body looming over the thin, chipped, plate. Something about the way his muscles stretched over the thick bones of his body and the broadness of his back and shoulders made my lungs hurt. "You know," he began, "I'm beginning to come around on this coffee stuff."

Peeta looked up at me, his blue eyes locking on my face. He looked like a dog when you walked in the door after a long day of work, like he had been waiting his whole life to see my face. He took another long draw from his coffee cup and tried to hide his wince as he swallowed. I laughed. "Peeta," I said, "you really are one of the good ones."

He smiled softly and stood to rinse out his empty cup. _"Not good enough"_ he murmured to the running tap. His words were almost drowned out by the splashing water, but not quite.

* * *

My arrows whipped through the air, slicing thick sheets of atmosphere with their serrated tips. I love the sounds they make, irreverent towards the leaves that droop around the wild turkey. A squawk, a fluttering, dead. I walked to inspect the bird and was satisfied with the still-warm body I had massacred. I hoisted the bird over my shoulders and made my way home for supper.

I had plucked rosemary sprigs on my walk up and the scent of the crushed leaves in my pouch reminded me of Peeta. I was certain that he would be pleased by my selection of ingredients for dinner. We had reached a point of stability, me harvesting food and him preparing, me reading the books we had scavenged from the abandoned houses of district twelve as Peeta maintained the fire. It was comfortable, and comfortable was something I had been craving since the fall of the Capitol.

There was, however, the blossoming of a primal instinct in my gut whenever I saw Peeta. I was afraid of that sort of emotion, I worked to actively suppress it, but I'm sure Peeta saw me bite my lip when he tugged his shirt off before bed. There was something about his back that I loved most. The muscles that moved in and out, the way that it had been the dividing line between bloodthirsty tributes and me a few years ago. It meant protection to me, which in my fragile state I actively sought.

I gripped my bow tightly. It helped me to regain that sense of protection I had lost. I could always make use of a bow, even if I had utilized that ability to murder in the past. _Coin_. I shuddered as I approached the house.

The doorknob felt cold and brassy in my palms and as I swung the door open all I could feel was the strength of Peeta's palms around my neck.

**Sorry this chapter is so short- it's setting up for the next one! Be patient with me and R&R!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_All is fair in love and we're in love._

_Now that everybody's dead, we can finally talk._

_Can vanity and happiness coexist?_

_All the lovers we've taken in direct view of the enemy_

_-Rilo Kiley, Love and War_

Peeta's hands around my throat tightened and I could feel the blood pooling beneath the thin layer of skin that separated his fingertips from my veins. His eyes narrowed, and the blue of his irises became icy with unadulterated hatred, directed towards me. "You don't know how much joy I'm going to get," he growled.

I curled my fingers around his hands and tried to pry. "Joy... from what?" I gasped.

"Killing you."

My eyes went wide. He could do it, too, if he really wanted. He could squeeze the life from me. It would be effortless and silent. I could pass from one stage to the next without a struggle. The Mockingjay, dead at the hands of her former lover. Soft, death could be soft, like goose down. I considered succumbing, but the real Peeta that I knew and loved said somewhere within me: "Don't let me kill you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, and so I would cease to live."

The Peeta that I knew and loved. The Peeta that I loved. _Fuck, Katniss. You love him. _

This wasn't the time for that realization. I could picture Peeta and I, curled in my bed, him tracing the outline of my breastbone. "When did you realize you loved me, again?" Peeta would ask, a wisp of a grin uncurling across his face.

I would laugh. "You were strangling me."

I understand that we will always be a dysfunctional duo. "Peeta, don't do this," I begged him.

"Don't beg for your life, Katniss. I've thought you a lot of things: idiotic, spoiled, licentious, foolhardy, but never pathetic. It would bring me too much happiness to see your final moments be so delightfully _pathetic,_" he spat. I could feel hot, fat tears as thick as dinner plates roll in mutiny across my cheeks. "Don't give me that satisfaction. Don't be so weak."

"Peeta," I cried. I was seeing glitter fall from the sky. The beats of my heart grew shallow and infrequent. He was going to murder me. The man I loved was going to murder me.

The world turned black. I couldn't feel the collar of muscle Peeta had slipped around my neck. All I could see was Prim, standing with Rue and Finnick. Prim, Rue, Finnick, Cinna, all in the darkness. "You know what you need to say to him," Prim said.

Finnick laughed, "You know what that boy has been just _dying_ to hear."

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I missed them all so much that it physically hurt my stomach to see them. "But I want to... stay... with you," I said, reaching my slender arm for Prim's small hand.

She shook her head. "We'll have our time. But this isn't it, Katniss."

"This is the beginning of something else for you," Cinna said. His voice sounded so rich in the barren space, like it was bouncing from walls of crimson velvet. "You know what you have to do, Girl on Fire."

I nodded. "Peeta," I gasped. The feeling of his strong hands, my back against the wall, my bloodless limbs was resurrected with with uncontrollable pain. "Peeta, don't kill me. You love me and..."

His eyes burned. I whimpered, "And I love you."

His pupils remained wide and mechanical. "I love you, Peeta. I love you, okay?"

I fell to the floor. Peeta stood in front of me, quivering. He looked at the cracked palms of his hands and quiet tears began to fall into them, collecting in the ravines of his skin. "You love me?" he whispered.

I was collapsed against the wall, rubbing my neck tenderly. "Yes, Peeta, I love you."

"How could I hurt you? How could I let that happen?" he wondered aloud, his voice coming in strangled mumbles. He knotted his fingers in his hair. "How could I let that happen? How can I stop this? How... Katniss, I am..."

I stood up, wrapping my arms around his crumpled frame. "Peeta," I hushed him, running my hands over his gratuitous back, "you didn't hurt me. That wasn't you. That was President Snow, continuing to torture us both. I know you didn't hurt me, you would never hurt me intentionally. I know that, I know that, I do."

"I'm so sorry, Katniss."

"I know that," I said, crying myself now. I hated to see him engaged in such passionate self-loathing. That was my lot in life, and I would wish it upon no one.

He wrapped his arms around me, his muscles relaxing. He made sure not to touch anywhere near my neck. We stood like that, our bodies intertwined and hearts synchronized, for twenty minutes. Neither of us said a word; we just held one another until the pain of our psychological destruction faded into a dull clamor in the back of heads. Peeta's body heaved inward and outward and he buried his face in my collar, inhaling the scent of me. He ran his fingers through my hair, over my back, just relishing his ability to touch me. His touch was powerful, both he and I knew that now, and he was gentle. He treated me like a bruised fruit, an injured lamb. He leaned his forehead against mine. "So, you love me?" he whispered. His voice cracked.

"I think I always have," I admitted.

_**R&R. Any and all criticisms, plot suggestions, or tokens of advice gratefully accepted! Will try to update soon!**_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_Dear, when you're out there on your own _

_Remember me _

_I'm the one that felt like home _

_And you, my winter's dream _

_How I long to be asleep _

_To be with you again _

_To be warmed by your skin _

_- Animal Flag, Winter's Dream _

Peeta sat slumped in the corner of our bedroom, his hands still quivering. "You know," he said quietly, "that wasn't how I wanted you to tell me."

I let my head fall heavy against our pillow. _Our pillow. _ That was okay for me to think now. "Peeta," I began, "that doesn't make it any less true."

He smiled. "I know that. But I just... I didn't give it the reaction it deserved," he said.

"We've never really gotten to do much according to a plan," I said.

Peeta stood up and the broadness of his body slivered the shafts of light that grazed our floor. He leaned an arm against the bed and the muscles of his shoulders contracted. "Katniss," he said, his lips curling into a lusty grin, "I had some big plans for when you finally caved."

I smacked him in the head with a pillow. "When I caved? What made you so sure, Loverboy?"

I laughed and he swung his body over mine, so we were two parallel lines that he was determined to make meet. "I just had to be sure," he said. "Didn't exactly hurt that your options were few, though."

"If I had a wealth of options, I'd still choose you," I said. _Gross, Katniss. Don't go soft. _

"Ew, Katniss, don't go soft on me," Peeta said with a laugh. I wrapped my arms around his neck, I couldn't help it.

He kissed me on the forehead, softly, and then again on the mouth. Falling aside me, he said, "I'll show you, Katniss. Next time you're overcome with affection, I'll show you how I really should've reacted."

* * *

"You two?" Haymitch snorted. "About time."

The sharp smell of white alcohol wafted from the decrepit armchair in which Haymitch traditionally sat. He held a chipped teacup in his hands, the sheen of the porcelain looking violated next to his dirty nails. "You're a tea drinker?" I asked.

"Buttercup," Haymitch replied with a warm laugh in his throat, "this is bourbon."

Peeta laughed from the kitchen. My cheeks became swathed in hot blush and I jabbed my finger in Haymitch's direction. "You, my friend, have problems."

I sunk into our sofa, looking at the tiny world I had recreated. The rawness of Prim's death would probably never cease burning, and I missed knowing that I could count on Gale to pick me up in the morning, but this life I had cobbled together here was something worth appreciating. Haymitch, however dysfunctional, was loveable and honest. Peeta, setting a bowl of salted butter and hot baguette on the table, was stable, doting, and genuinely good. There was always food in my pantry and water at my tap and when Peeta was laughing hard enough, the gnawing in my heart dimmed until it was almost imperceptible.

Haymitch chuckled and took a long draw on his teacup. "You two need each other," he said. "This is good for the two of you."

"Thanks, Dad," Peeta mocked.

"Hey, hey, hey, I'll always be your mentor," Haymitch said with a wink. He produced a flask from his breastpocket and refilled his teacup. He looked absolutely ridiculous, like an insolent prince.

"So how'd you finally break down and tell him?" he asked.

"It's private!" Peeta barked. His blue eyes clouded over. My heart broke for him, still ashamed of the handicap the Capitol had placed on him.

Haymitch raised his hands, "Okay, Loverboy, cool your jets."

Peeta's chest heaved from his seat beside me on the couch. I laughed nervously, trying to diffuse the tension that had left a film over the room. "Peeta, did you make this bread?" I asked.

He nodded, still looking into his palms like they had destroyed something he cherished. _Because they might_, I thought.

"I'm cold, I'm going to grab a sweater," Peeta said, standing up rigidly. "You want anything, Katniss?"

"I'm fine, thank you," I said. My voice sounded small and strangled.

Peeta leaned over and kissed the crown of my head softly before leaving the room. "He's still having episodes, isn't he?" Haymitch said.

I stared at him, mouth agape. Realizing that my reaction had confirmed his suspicions, I clamped my jaw shut and folded my arms. "After what the Capitol put him through, you're going to get on his case about this?"

"I'm not getting on his case, Buttercup, calm down. I'm just trying to keep track of you two. I know he loves you and I know you love him, but I have to know what's going on just in case... so no one gets hurt."

My eyes felt hot. I couldn't tell if it meant I was furious, or exasperated, or about to cry, but I felt white, blurred emotions course over my skin. "I can take care of myself. Peeta isn't... won't hurt me, Haymitch! Why can't you trust him?"

Haymitch's face twisted to a sour expression. "You think I don't trust him? You imbecile, I trust Peeta more than I trust almost anyone else! He kept you alive, whether you want to admit it or not, you wouldn't have survived without him! He didn't give up on you, even when you were being a hard-ass or a pain in the ass or just a straight-up ass! I trust the kid, I do." He paused, taking another sip of bourbon. "I just understand that his... condition... is erratic and uncontrollable and I want to be here to help, in case your little spaghetti arms can't get you out of every bind."

I collapsed into my hands. Haymitch was right, but I had just felt defensive of Peeta, who I knew was ashamed that he couldn't control himself. Resolute bricks built up around my arms, a fortress for me and for Peeta. "I can handle this," I said. "I want to handle this."

Haymitch clucked his tongue against the yellows of his teeth and nothing more was said on the matter.

* * *

Peeta and I climbed into bed that night, the windows opened to let the cool March breeze sweep over our tangled limbs. "Katniss," Peeta whispered, staring me dead in the eye, "I love you."

An involuntary and genuine smile swept across my features. "I love you, too."

He fell asleep instantly, tired from tensing his muscles all day. I could see the way he walked when Haymitch had mentioned my divulgence, and his legs became defined and taut, like a cat who had been stroked by a foreign hand. I fell asleep in his echo, the space he had carved out for my softening body, and was carried by the continual rising and falling of his chest into dreamscapes of peacetime.

"Katniss!" I awoke to Peeta shouting my name, sweat running along the sides of his face. His blue eyes searched the cold, dark horizons for my figure. I wrapped my arms around him as his back disintegrated into a waterfall of quivering tears. I stroked the back of his head as wept into my shoulders. "I'm here, Peeta," I repeated. "I've got you."


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

* * *

_Do what you did yesterday, go on repeating_

_'cos my heart's only on fire when you are the teacher_

_You take the torch and I, follow the leader_

_You'd be my master and I'll be your fever_

_You told me your past was taken by thieves_

_Since then you've been running in search of reliefs_

_You don't know when it's coming, I don't know either _

_You'd be my master and I'll be your fever_

_The angels are singing, words written for you_

_Trumpets are telling of your beauty and truth_

_But you've been working it out for yourself like some over-achiever_

_So just be my master and I'll be your fever_

_Villagers, The Pact (I'll Be Your Fever)_

* * *

There was a crescent of musky air in the space where Peeta had slept. It hung near to me when I opened my eyes each morning, reassuring me that his existence wasn't a dream.

I reached my arms into the warm pocket of air he'd left behind, groaning as the muscles of my back stretched and the spaces between my vertebrae let out soft popping noises. I slipped Peeta's rumpled white button down over my bare shoulders, acknowledging once and for all that he had laid claim to me. I padded down the stairs, the bottoms of my heels baked from the hot summer earth that I'd walked over. Peeta stood in the kitchen with two mugs of coffee and our books. "Good morning," he said. "I like your shirt."

His eyes twinkled and a smile unfurled across the tanned planes of his face. "Thanks," I said with a shrug and throaty laugh. "This homeless man on the side of the road just threw it at me. It was bizarre..."

Peeta smacked me in the back of my head lightly with his book. "Where is he? I'm going to hunt him down and give him a piece of my mind!"

I laughed and turned so our stomachs pressed against one another. I could feel his body fill with breath, the heat his skin radiated, and his eyes on the top of my head. "Peeta, Peeta, Peeta," I said, letting his name roll lazily off my tongue.

He kissed me on the forehead. "I like the way you say my name."

"Well, good, because you're stuck with it," I said with a laugh. I kissed him quickly on the lips, casually as if the electric currents that pulsated through my spine didn't make me see violet.

We spent the day on our porch reading books and looking out on the scorched earth of District 12. People had only recently begun to resettle the area and new blades of grass had finally begun to push up through the blackened dirt. I wasn't certain I wanted the revival of District 12. I knew I was supposed to, but I wasn't sure if a return to normalcy would remind me just how much everything had changed and to a certain extent, I liked that Peeta and I had this little area to ourselves.

I looked over at him reading. His brow was furrowed and a tuft of blond hair grazed his forehead. The constricted muscles of his arms strained against the short sleeves of his polo shirt. A small pink triangle of tongue pushed out from between his lips in deep concentration. He ran his fingers over the pages of his book, _A Moveable Feast_ by Ernest Hemingway. I admired his intellect and the fact that he readily devoured the medieval texts of authors like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Kerouac. But as he skimmed the yellowed pages of his books, I inhaled sharply. I wished, selfishly and uncharacteristically, that those rough and warm hands were on my waist, my thighs, the back of my neck.

I had become often selfish in love. I wanted Peeta to myself, and was hesitant to parcel out any of my time to Haymitch or hunting. I didn't want to miss a second of Peeta's life, which has become at this point inextricably intertwined with my own life. I wanted to see the way his skin glowed in the falling sun and the way he straightened the spoons on the table. He and I prepared meals together. I would slice the vegetables we'd harvested together that morning into cubes or discs and he would cook everything. It was silent, comfortable, and we'd bump elbows and not blush because we were used to our skin touching. Occasionally, Peeta would snake his arms around my waist and kiss my neck softly, beckoning to me, "Do you want to flip the pancakes?" and I'd spin around and nuzzle his cheek.

The days were dusty and warm. The road was cracked and summertime dandelions grew up in the ravines. It was a slow and easy way to be in love. Haymitch would come over for rabbit dinners and we would eat and let the oils of the animal drip down our chins. We'd grown old, in control, enough to allow the occasional splash of white liquor into our cups. Our bellies warm and full, our minds groggy and cheerful with alcohol, Peeta and I would collapse into bed, chastely but of late that chastity had accompanied by an acute sense of restraint. We wanted to absorb one another, but waited, patiently.

And of course the sleep itself should seem soft, cream soaked, like we'd expect it to be after a dandelion green banquet. But it was defined by fits of sweat and shouting as we were plunged back into the reality of our nightmares: our dead families, our lost district, our broken friendships, our own misfortunes. Our shouts in the night were loud and aluminum. We'd take turn playing nurse, holding one another and calming each other. Peeta would kiss my sweating temple and reassure me: "I love you, so nothing can hurt you, I love you, so nothing can hurt you."

_**Hope you enjoyed- Sorry for the slow update time, I've been a little preoccupied. Please R&R! Any criticisms or plot suggestions appreciated! xx **_


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